TSA takes more sensible approach to security

Holiday air travel seems to get more unpleasant with each passing year, especially if you’re flying coach. Planes are packed. Seats are cramped. Overhead bins are overloaded. Free meals are non-existent.

But one part of the airport experience has been improving, and — believe it or not — it’s the part controlled by the government. Four years after the pre-Thanksgiving “don’t touch my junk” uproar over intrusive pat-downs, the Transportation Security Administration has made significant strides toward a more common-sense approach to screening.

TSA has accomplished this even as airlines have made the screeners’ job harder by imposing hefty bag-check fees that encourage fliers to schlep their densely packed luggage through security and onto planes.

The most welcome change at the checkpoint: No longer is everyone — from toddlers to wheelchair-bound octogenarians — treated like a terrorist.

Expedited, “risk-based” security is now available to children under 12, seniors 75 and older, members of the armed services and other low-risk fliers. Most significantly, the PreCheck program has enrolled more than 700,000 travelers who can go through special lanes where they don’t have to remove shoes, belts, light jackets or laptops.

As a result of these and other steps, complaints are down more than 25 percent and wait times have been reduced, says TSA Administrator John Pistole, who is stepping down next month after four-and-a-half years on the job.

Despite the progress Pistole has made, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. In particular, it’s time to revisit the ban on liquids, gels, aerosols, creams and pastes exceeding 3.4 ounces.

The ban was imposed in 2006 after British police broke up a plot involving liquid explosives. It was supposed to be temporary, while chemists analyzed the threat. Instead, it became permanent, turning airport security into less of a search for terrorists and more of a search for stuff.

Countless beverages, tubes of toothpaste and other toiletries have been confiscated unnecessarily. Scrutiny of liquids is still needed given repeated reports of al-Qaida attempts to exploit non-metallic explosives, but screeners should have more discretion, and specially equipped lanes could be established to process oversized liquids, aerosols and gels.

Pistole’s successor should also take a hard look at the TSA’s “behavior detection” program, which involves some 3,000 officers seeking out people acting suspiciously at airports across the country. So far, the billion-dollar program has been more successful at spotting drunks and petty criminals than potential threats to aircraft.

In an era of locked cockpit doors, which make hijackings very unlikely, some critics say it’s time to abolish the TSA and what they call its all-for-show screening. Security would be left up to intelligence agencies and private companies, whose failures enabled the 9/11 attacks.

That would make flying more convenient, but it doesn’t reflect the still-dangerous real world in which Islamic extremists remain fixated on blowing up jetliners. As long as that threat remains, the TSA will have an important role to play, one that’s more than just security theater.